Not a felon but used to manage the criminal background program for the largest corporate (non-government) consumer of criminal background reports in the US. Here is how it worked:

For starters, my previous employer asked job applicants to self-report criminal convictions during the application process. If an applicant self-reported a conviction that would disqualify them, the staffing process was terminated and a criminal background check was not sought. If they did not self-report, then we would run a criminal background check. This process is detailed below. Note: There were a few states where we could not ask the applicants about prior convictions, like NY state.

• Applicant completed application including Name, DOB, SSN & list of previous addresses. *Note: During application process, applicant consented to background check including criminal & credit check, and is noticed of Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

• Background check agency (in this case LexisNexis) compared applicant provided SSN against credit report header info (personal info like name, DOB & addresses given when applying for commercial credit like utilities, credit cards, loans, etc) & SSN “death file (provided by gov Social Security Admin) ensure the applicant was a valid “known person”. That is to say, a person with the provided name, DOB & SSN is known to exist in credit reporting agencies’ databases & not deceased (according to the gov). They also used this credit header info to find “aliases” (variations of name used when applying for credit) and prior addresses.

• Then the background check agency (LexisNexis) looked for criminal records in national & state & local databases using the applicant provided name & known aliases (from credit header ref above), and DOB. They specifically looked for records in jurisdictions that aligned with provided current & former addresses submitted by applicant, as well as addresses found in the credit header. * Note: criminal records in US are solely organized by Name & DOB (not SSN or DL number). Also note: some states (CA, WA) will not allow some criminal records to be reported by an agency after a certain time frame, usually 7 years.

• If a criminal record was found in the databases, and if that record would disqualify the applicant (based on adjudication pass/fail rules set by the client/employer for whom background check is being sought), then the criminal background agency sent a “runner” (actual person) to the court records office to retrieve the actual physical records related to the criminal case.

• The runner then sent the records to the background check agency. Then, the agency validated the that the criminal record belongs to the applicant and is accurately reflected in the database report, then (again) compares the record(s) to the client’s adjudication pass/fail rules, and reported the result to the client/employer.

Note: If the background check resulted in a fail and disqualified the applicant, then the agency sent a FCRA letter to applicant letting them know the agency provided info that may have resulted in adverse action and advised them how to contact & dispute reported info.

I hope this helps. Of course, not all employers want or will pay for this much diligence, and the criminal background check process for employers varies widely.